My Portfolio

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek     Round Pegs and Square Holes     PhD Committee: Now, Candidate for the PhD, I want you to give this committee your views on the idea of putting round pegs in square holes and square pegs in round holes. ...

On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester  By Dick Pellek   The Pluggers    The Pluggers in life have been my own chosen groupies.  They know that they are not elite, highly skilled, ultra talented, or the fastest runners on the track.  But they know that if they have good...

On the road...again!!!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Before I Was Born   As much as the Footloose Forester tried to avoid nostalgia in his Chronicles of a Footloose Forester, there are certain images that contain so much personal meaning that it is like swimming against...

On the road...again!!!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   Rowboat to Troopship   A landlubber like the Footloose Forester always felt at home with the sound of granite sand under his boots, the firm landings of his bare feet in beach sand, and the whistle of the...

On the road…again!Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   On Ambitions     Only when the Footloose Forester reviewed the presumed acknowledgment/comment box for Ambitious about students in his class, as reported in the for-profit website called Classmates, did he even think about himself that way.  His graduating class...

On the road…again!!! Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   As I Lie Awake and Listen   Melancholia pervades a certain genre of music and people who suddenly become vulnerable to melancholia find a certain solace in the words and music of melancholic songs.  Singing...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, DreamsChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek    The Parody Defense   Only once in a while does the forgotten, third-rate would-be crafter of parody who calls himself the Footloose Forester get a response to his missives. He would prefer kudos but, alas, when the infrequent responses come,...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek     A Closer Look at a Picture Worth a Thousand Words Flamengos Tree Nursery, Cape Verde Some people are proud of their humble beginnings.  Others are impatient to move on and forget about the past. It was many...

Essays, Stories, Adventures, Dreams Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Moss and Mumblety-peg The game of mumblety-peg is so old that even Mark Twain mentioned it as one of the favorites enjoyed by young boys.  It was outdoors, in the summer, and played in the grass.  To do...

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....

I was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on January 15, 1931, during the Depression years. My mom and dad, Ruth Isabel Thrickmorton and Walter Leroy Arnold, were living with my dad's grandparents, Minnie Burkhart and Adolph Arnold, at 814 Eighth Stree, Portsmouth, Ohio. My great-grandparents had built the house in approximately 1892....

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Can We Remember?  Do We Remember?  Should We Remember?   People who think often about the past engage in subconscious peeking into their personal histories.  They see flashes of happy times, stressful times, sad times, times...

While driving my jaunty  Explorer Sportrac, which my wife has named “Sassy Red,”  to the dealer some thirty miles away for its scheduled  maintenance, I passed some long-familiar scenes.  My mind began drifting, conjuring an image of life as it was sixty to seventy years ago.  God, how I long for...

PREFACE:  This is the second memoir of a multi-year experience that had a definite impact on my later life.  I want to stress that I am sharing these experiences in an effort to give some testimony to the way God has worked in my life and not in any sort of...

In rummaging through my bookshelf recently selecting books I could donate to our church’s garage sale I came across a collection of stories my next oldest brother, Gene, had written as a columnist for the weekly newspaper in the town in which he grew up  He grew up living in and...

Preface:  This is the first "chapter" of what will be a "quadrilogy" chronicling a part of my teen years that had a profound effect on my later life.  I do not offer these in any kind of "I'm proud of this" boasting way.  If I have any motive other than simply...

In the fall of 1956 a young woman with four small children moved to Oskaloosa, Iowa, where my family lived. I don’t remember her name and wouldn’t divulge it if I did, so I’ll call her Carol. She came from another State, where she and her children had been battered by...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Who Are Graduates Of The School Of Hard Knocks?   All too often conversations about who had (has) it rough in life devolve into unstated debates wherein speakers subconsciously fish for words to express their plight. ...

Trick or . . . . trick Halloween in the late 20th, Early 21st Century is a "holiday" that has completely metamorphosed from the form it had at mid-20th Century. If a teen-aged boy of those days were somehow magically time-traveled to Halloween night 2014 and saw little kids going from...

On the road...again!Afghanistan to ZambiaChronicles of a Footloose ForesterBy Dick Pellek   This Was Home For More Than 55 Years A picture can prompt 10,000 words this photo was rejected for inclusion in a book of memoirs because of presumed copyright law violation   At first glance,  the photo above seems...